Tropological reading or "moral sense" is a
Christian
Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words ''Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρι ...
tradition, theory, and practice of interpreting the
figurative meaning of the
Bible
The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts of a ...
. It is part of biblical
exegesis
Exegesis ( ; from the Ancient Greek, Greek , from , "to lead out") is a critical explanation or interpretation (logic), interpretation of a text. The term is traditionally applied to the interpretation of Bible, Biblical works. In modern usage, ...
.
Doctrine
According to doctrine developed by the
Church Fathers
The Church Fathers, Early Church Fathers, Christian Fathers, or Fathers of the Church were ancient and influential Christian theologians and writers who established the intellectual and doctrinal foundations of Christianity. The historical per ...
, the
literal meaning, or God-intended meaning of the words of the Bible, may be read figuratively as a moral reading for one's personal life. For instance, in the ''
Song of Songs'' (also called ''Canticles'' or ''Song of Solomon''), which contains love songs between a woman and a man, the text can also symbolize the love between God and a believer.
In the conception of the
Church Fathers
The Church Fathers, Early Church Fathers, Christian Fathers, or Fathers of the Church were ancient and influential Christian theologians and writers who established the intellectual and doctrinal foundations of Christianity. The historical per ...
, the definitions of "
allegory
As a literary device or artistic form, an allegory is a narrative or visual representation in which a character, place, or event can be interpreted to represent a hidden meaning with moral or political significance. Authors have used allegory th ...
" and "tropology" were very close, until
Middle Ages
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...
where the Church made a clearer distinction between allegorical
spiritual meaning, tropological
moral
A moral (from Latin ''morālis'') is a message that is conveyed or a lesson to be learned from a story or event. The moral may be left to the hearer, reader, or viewer to determine for themselves, or may be explicitly encapsulated in a maxim. A ...
meaning and styles of interpretation.
[ Alister E. McGrath, ''Christian Theology: An Introduction'', John Wiley & Sons, USA, 2011, p. 132]
Etymology
The
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic peri ...
word ''τρόπος'' (''tropos'') meant 'turn, way, manner, style'. The term ''τροπολογία'' (''tropologia'') was coined from this word around the second century AD, in
Hellenistic Greek
Koine Greek (; Koine el, ἡ κοινὴ διάλεκτος, hē koinè diálektos, the common dialect; ), also known as Hellenistic Greek, common Attic, the Alexandrian dialect, Biblical Greek or New Testament Greek, was the common supra-reg ...
, to mean 'allegorical interpretation of scripture' (and also, by the fourth century, 'figurative language' more generally).
[Tropology, n.]
,
trope, n.
, ''OED Online''.
The Greek word ''τρόπος'' had already been borrowed into
Classical Latin
Classical Latin is the form of Literary Latin recognized as a literary standard by writers of the late Roman Republic and early Roman Empire. It was used from 75 BC to the 3rd century AD, when it developed into Late Latin. In some later periods ...
as ''tropus'', meaning 'figure of speech', and the Latinised form of ''τροπολογία'', ''tropologia'', is found already in the fourth-century writing of
Saint Jerome
Jerome (; la, Eusebius Sophronius Hieronymus; grc-gre, Εὐσέβιος Σωφρόνιος Ἱερώνυμος; – 30 September 420), also known as Jerome of Stridon, was a Christian priest, confessor, theologian, and historian; he is comm ...
in the sense 'figurative language', and by the fifth century in sense 'moral interpretation'. This Latin term was adopted in medieval French as ''tropologie'', and English developed the form ''tropology'' in the fifteenth century through the simultaneous influence of French and Latin.
See also
*
Allegorical interpretation of the Bible
Allegorical interpretation of the Bible is an interpretive method (exegesis) that assumes that the Bible has various levels of meaning and tends to focus on the spiritual sense, which includes the allegorical sense, the moral (or tropological) s ...
*
Anagoge
Anagoge (ἀναγωγή), sometimes spelled anagogy, is a Greek word suggesting a "climb" or "ascent" upwards. The anagogical is a method of mystical or spiritual interpretation of statements or events, especially scriptural exegesis, that det ...
*
Biblical hermeneutics
Biblical hermeneutics is the study of the principles of interpretation concerning the books of the Bible. It is part of the broader field of hermeneutics, which involves the study of principles of interpretation, both theory and methodology, for ...
*
Historical-grammatical method
The historical-grammatical method is a modern Christian hermeneutical method that strives to discover the biblical authors' original intended meaning in the text. According to the historical-grammatical method, if based on an analysis of the gram ...
*
Trope (linguistics)
A literary trope is the use of figurative language, via word, phrase or an image, for artistic effect such as using a figure of speech. Keith and Lundburg describe a trope as, "a substitution of a word or phrase by a less literal word or phrase." ...
Notes
References
;Attribution
*
Biblical exegesis
Tropes
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